World Report

Associated Press

Published Saturday, August 14, 2004

Sudanese president orders disarming of militias

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir ordered tribal leaders in the Darfur region to form security forces to disarm Arab militias blamed for a rampage of violence that has killed 30,000 people during an 18-month conflict.

The decision, announced late Thursday after two days of talks between government officials and Darfur tribal chiefs, comes amid intense international pressure to end the Darfur crisis, which has chased more than 1 million people from their homes.

The United Nations describes Darfur's plight as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The European Union, United States and humanitarian groups accuse el-Bashir's government of backing the Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, with vehicles, helicopters and airplanes -- a charge denied by Sudanese officials.

Darfur's troubles stem from long-standing tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and African farm communities over dwindling water and agricultural land in the vast, arid region of western Sudan.

Those tensions exploded in February 2003 when two African rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government. Since then, the Janjaweed have burned villages and slaughtered farmers across the region.

Judge orders terror suspect detained 28 more days

LONDON -- A judge on Friday ordered that a British man wanted in the United States for allegedly aiding terrorists be held for 28 more days as lawyers prepare for an extradition hearing.

Judge Christopher Pratt at Bow Street Magistrates Court ordered that Babar Ahmad, whom U.S. authorities have accused of using U.S.-based Web sites to recruit fighters and raise support for Taliban forces in Afghanistan, remain in custody pending a hearing Sept. 10.

Ahmad, 30, was arrested in London on Aug. 4 on a U.S. extradition warrant from a federal judge in Connecticut. The warrant accuses him of trying to raise funds for "acts of terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan" from 1998 through 2003.

Report: Typhoon Rananim kills 115 in China

SHANGHAI, China -- The death toll from Typhoon Rananim rose to 115 late Friday, after the most powerful storm of the season slammed into the China's southeastern coast, state television reported.

Another 16 people were missing in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, where the storm roared ashore late Thursday with winds of more than 160 kph (100 mph), China Central Television said.

The storm injured more than 1,800 people and knocked down thousands of homes, various state media reported.

Rananim weakened to a tropical storm on Friday as it moved west into inland Jiangxi province, bringing heavy rain to China's central lakes region.

More than 42,000 houses were destroyed and tens of thousands more damaged, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Rananim was the most powerful typhoon to strike China since 1997, the newspaper Qianjiang Evening News said on its Web site.

Authorities reportedly had evacuated 410,000 people from the storm's path, many from rural villages where Xinhua said raging wind and rain destroyed huge swathes of cropland and killed thousands of livestock.